Colloquium Series, Spring 2012
Reads from Drive-by Vigils and Leche, by R. Zamora Linmark, Wednesday, January 25, 2012, at 7:30 pm, HIG Auditorium.
Event has been made possible by grants from SEED, American Studies, Philippine Studies, and English Department. For more info, call (808) 956-3049. More....
Florentino Das' Solo Voyage from Hawaii
to the Philippines, by Cecilia Noble, Ph.D. candidate, Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 4:00 p.m.
Philippine Consulate General Lanai, 2433 Pali Highway, Honolulu.
In Celebration of the 27th Anniversary of the Congress of Visayan Organizations
- Sylvia Day
- Dr. Jun Colmenares
- Dr. Patricia Halagao
On May 14, 1955, Florentino Das left Kewalo Basin aboard his homemade wooden boat Lady Timarau, powered only by two 25-hp outboard motors and a canvas sail and with no modern communication or navigational instruments except a simple compass and the stars. His goal - to cross the Pacific Ocean and reach his native Philippines. He encountered several storms along the way and had to stay in Ponape, Micronesia for several months to repair his boat. Told by his sponsors to abort his journey, he refused because he felt that Filipino national pride was on the line. He finally reached Siargao, Mindanao, Philippines on April 25, 1956. For his formidable feat and patriotic zeal, he was received and honored by no less than then Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay who bestowed on him the Legion of Honor and the honorary title of Commodore of the Philippine Navy. After the initial adulation, however, he slipped into obscurity. Unable to return to Hawaii, he got sick and died in Manila, impoverished, on October 7, 1964, at age 46.
For RSVP and inquiries, please call Jun Colmenares at 510-734-4491.More...
Isabelo's Archive: The Formation of Philippine Studies, by Resil Mojares, Ph.D., Andrews Chair Visiting Professor, SPAS, February 10, 2012, 2:30-3:30 pm, CKS Auditorium (Reception to follow).
The lecture traces the formation of "Philippine Studies" by Filipinos to a public appeal issued in 1885 by the journalist and scholar Isabelo de los Reyes (1864-1938), calling on his countrymen to join a movement that would build an "archive of popular knowledge" in the Philippines. In discussing the significance of Isabelo's appeal and his own response to it, the publication of the two-volume Folk-Lore Filipino (1889), the lecture explores the possibilities, limits, and dangers of national archive-building in the Philippines. More...
Baguio City as the Second Washington DC: Triumphant Urban Center or Fast Declining Slum. by Gerard Finin, Ph.D., Program Senior Fellow and Co-Director, East-West Center Pacific Islands Development, Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 12:30-2:00 pm, Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room).
Since the time of Baguio's founding, questions about the city's future have loomed large. Initially viewed by many as an expensive utopian colonial project doomed to failure, the growth of Baguio has over time resulted in nostalgic calls for limiting growth. Despite two periods of near catastrophic destruction followed by pessimistic predictions about the future, the Cordillera's premier center of agglomeration has today rebounded beyond all expectations. The presentation will examine the dynamics and structural features of Baguio's century of growth in terms of its implications for the future of the southern Cordillera as a whole. Several policy proposals are suggested for meeting the challenges of expansion in the decades to come. More...
A Mountain of Difference: Re-locating the Lumad in Philippine Historical Imagination, by Oona Paredes, Ph.D., Asst Professor, Dept of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 12:30-2:00 pm, Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room).
The indigenous non-Muslims of Mindanao, referred to generally as the Lumad, are characterized by scholarly convention as those who managed to escape the radical cultural transformations that defined the Philippine colonial experience for other Filipinos. Their territories in the mountainous interior of Mindanao symbolize not only the physical space they occupy but also their historical place in the national imagination. We tend to locate them quite far from lowland civilization not only temporally but also in terms of cultural evolution and travel. In sharp contrast, archival records show that north-east Mindanao was one of the earliest areas of continuous Catholic missionization by the Recoletos, and that the ancestors of today's Lumad were active participants in mission life and in Spanish military engagement against the Magindanaw. Oral traditions of Manobo-speaking groups also speak to coastal dwelling ancestors in contact with Spaniards. So why are Lumads viewed as mountain people from "time immemorial"? It may ultimately be a matter of reassessing our conceptualization of Mindanao's upland/lowland divide in the early Spanish colonial period through the key terms that have structured our geographical sense of the Lumad. This talk discusses my archival research on the mission history of Lumads prior to the 19th century, and reflects on the importance of putting the Lumad back in their proper "place," both historically and culturally. More...
Searching for the Baglan in the Philippines, by Charissa Fabia, MA student in Religion; and Spatial Bataan: Redistributing Memorial Capas, by Miguel Llora, Ph.D. Candidate, American Studies Department, Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 12:30-2:30 pm, Moore Hall 319.
Fabia will be discussing about the Baglans (Ilokano healers), specifically living in Oahu. I will first look into the historical aspect of the healers to understand the process of why and how they disappeared, using the Babaylan (Visayas healers) as an example. I will also look into different types of healers, among them Korean and Hawaiian to find similarities of struggles. Lastly, I will discuss where I am in my project. Included in this presentation is my SOP (Statement of Problem) to shed light on why there is a need to bring the Baglans (both physical and language) back into the Ilokano community. More...
On the other hand, Llora points out that no comprehensive examination of the commemoration of the Bataan Death March exists. This talk begins to address that gap through a spatial examination of the Capas National Shrine. At the center of this exploration are the two monuments that share the same space: The Capas National Shrine and the Camp O’Donnell Memorial Monument. I argue here that the dynamic tension setup by these two monuments tenuously sharing the same space exemplify how separate but interrelated publics vie to be noticed. More...
Soy Filipino y Hablo Espanyol: Spanish Language Motivation and Post-Colonial Identity among Filipino Learners, by Matthew Nelson, Yuchengco Scholarship Recipient, Department of Second Language Studies, March 21, 2012, 12:30-2:30 pm, Moore Hall 319.
This presentation explores the impact of the globalization of the Spanish language and its interaction in the Philippines, Asia's only former Spanish colony. As the country orients to rapid growth in the BPI sector (call-center industry), there has been vigorous promotion for foreign language education. In particular, Spanish language -- as an auxiliary language -- is experiencing a resurgence, a movement uniquely tailored to the country's rich but turbulent colonial past and its Hispanic/Latin and American cultural affiliations. Key words for this talk include language attitudes, language motivation, language policy and planning, hybridity, ethnicity and nationality, identity, and post-colonialism. More...
When will Datuk Leonard Wood Return and Save us from the Filipinos? Southern Philippine Muslims and their Peculiar Pro-American Sympathies, by Patricio Abinales, Ph.D., Asian Studies Program. Co-sponsored with East-West Center's ICSCP. Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 12:00-1:15 pm, Burns Hall 2118.
In 2002, a survey of Muslim views on the visit of American troops to the southern Philippines reported that over 60% of the respondents approved of the visit (26% disapproved). A year later the chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an armed movement committed to separating the Muslim zones from the national body politic, wrote a letter to President George W. Bush to "use your good offices in..resolving [the] predicament of the Bangsamoro People [Moro people]" and mediate peace talks between the MILF and the Philippine government. These two episodes are just one of several examples of a widespread pro-Americanism among Muslims that has acted as a powerful ountervailing influence to the attempts of the Philippine nation-state to exercise full sovereignty over its most rebellious minority. The lecture explores some of the possible historical, economic and institutional factors that are behind this sentiment. More...
Turmoils, Dinners and Muslims: A Mini-Conference on the Philippine South. April 20, 2012, 1:00 pm-5:00 pm, Center for Korean Studies Auditorium. Reception to follow.
This conference is a 3-in-1 program which features three guest lecturers who will speak on a variety of topics on historical and contemporary events in Cebu and Muslim Mindanao. The speakers and their talks are: Dr. Resil Mojares, University of San Carlos, Cebu, Philippines, "The Dinner of the Principales: Who's Who in Pre-Revolutionary Cebu;" Dr. Michael P. Cullinane, University of Wisconsin, Madison, "Ang Kagubot sa Sugbu (The Turmoil in Sugbo ): Who Revolted in Cebu in 1898?;" and Wilfredo Magno Torres III, Asia Foundation, Manila, Philippines, "Clan Feud and Conflict Management in Muslim Mindanao."
Resil Mojares is Professor Emeritus at the University of San Carlos, Cebu and author of Brains of the Nation: Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de los Reyes and the Production of Modern Knowlededge (Ateneo Press, 2006). He is currently the UH Arthur Lynn Andrews Visiting Professor in Asian Studies.
Michael Cullinane is lecturer in the History Department and the Associate Director for the Center for Southeast Asian Studies. He is author of Ilustrado Politics: Filipino Elite Responses to American Rule (Ateneo, 1989).
Wilfredo Magno Torres III is Program Officer at the Asia Foundation, Manila, and edited the volume Rido: Clan Feuding and Conflict Management in Mindanao (Asia Foundation: 2007).
More details are found Here...
EthniSyncracies: Dance Concert Featuring the House of Dance (Philippines), Saturday, April 21, 2012, 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm, Mamiya Theater, St. Louis Center of the Arts, Chaminade University, 3140 Waialae Avenue. Matinee and Gala Performances. See Flyer...
The Center for Philippine Studies will host the House of Dance Company, a team of young dancers, dance educators and choreographers from Manila, Philippines, known for its cutting-edge innovative dance performances. The House of Dance will stage a major concert in Hawaii entitled EthniSyncracies.
Through classical and modern interpretations of Philippine dance, EthniSyncracies tells the story of the evolution of Philippine culture, its indigenous roots, its foreign influences, and its intrinsically hybrid nature. Part I of the performance will highlight the indigenous cultural practices of Filipinos - both tribal and non-tribal - from different regions of the country: Islamic textile weaving, cockfighting, and the war dances and honeymoon rituals of the Ivatan and Yakan respectively from the South; Ifugao mating rituals and the healing practices of the Aeta from the north. Part II explores the colonial influences that have shaped Philippine society over the past centuries, and draws on Spanish courtship and wedding rituals, Catholic traditions of penance and penitence, as well as more contemporary themes centered around the role of women, violence, community gossip and street play in modern Philippine society. For direction, please click the campus map of CUH.
For direction, please click the campus map of CUH.
Engendering Counterinsurgency: The Battle to Win 'Hearts and Minds' of Women during the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines, by Vina Lanzona, Ph.D., CPS Director & Professor, History Department. Co-sponsored with the History Department, Friday, April 27, 2012, Time: 2:30-4:00 pm, 2530 Dole Street, Sakamaki Hall A201.
In the ensuing counterinsurgency (COIN) war against the Taliban, the women of Afghanistan, "whom George W. Bush claimed to have liberated so many years ago, are still mostly oppressed, impoverished, malnourished, uneducated ... and mad as hell." A similar rationale, and a similar failed attention to women, characterized the Huk rebellion in the Philippines, the first major communist rebellion defeated by U.S. counterinsurgency operations in the postwar, Cold War, era. COIN's "success" in the Philippines partly explains its potency and persistence as a war strategy.This talk revisits the "success" of COIN in the Philippines by looking closely at its three core wars: the propaganda war, psychological warfare, and the war against communities, focusing on how women and notions of gender and sexuality shaped counterinsurgency campaigns against the Huks. Despite its professed desire to win "hearts and minds," counterinsurgency wars continue to marginalize at least half of the population then and now. More...
Lupang Hinirang: Issues on Philippine Maritime Jurisdiction. A community-initiated educational forum, Tuesday, May 15, 2012, Time: 5:30 pm, Philippine Consulate Lanai, 2433 Pali Highway, Honolulu.
This forum is a collaborative initiative of the Knights of Rizal-Hawaii Chapter, University of the Philippines Alumni Association of Hawaii, Congress of Visayan Organization, United Filipino Councils of Hawaii, and UH Center for Philippines Studies. A roundtable discussion will take up these issues, with Dr. Raymund Liongson as moderator. The panelists include Dr. Serafin P. Colmenares, Jr., Dr. Federico V. Magdalena, Consul General Julius D. Torres, and Dr. Belinda A. Aquino. Please click Flyer or the Summary of presentation for details.